some explorations in the analysis of long-term changes in the structure of agriculture :...

197

SOME EXPLORATIONS IN THE ANALYSIS OF

OF AGRICULTURE LONG-TERM CHANGES IN THE STRUCTURE

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

D. KkBritton Wye College (University of Londoli)

The paper indicates ways in which farm census and survey data might be more fully explored. The following are some of the questions raised: Is the size-structure of farms in England and Wales now approaching stability ? Are farms continuing to specialise on fewer and larger enterprises ? Which types of farming are increasing or diminishing in importance ? Is there any perceptible trend towards greater inequality of income or of efficiency between farms? What is the trend in the respective income shares of farmers, workers and landowners ?

Economists, statisticians and economic historians who are concerned with the non-agricultural sectors of the economy, or with the economy as a whole, have sometimes cast envious glances at the apparent wealth of statistical information which is available relating to agriculture in the United Kingdom. We have our annual agricultural censuses dating back in uninterrupted series to 1866, and our Farm Management Survey reports for every year since 1936, for England and Wales. These two sources alone provide far more material for analysis than is available for the great majority of other indmtries, and when we add to them the many other regular statistical series which were described by Leonard Napolitan in his Presidential address of 1974, and the comprehensive compendium of all these series which the Oxford Institute has supplied to us from time to time, with very helpful commentaries, under the title The State of British Agriculture, we may indeed count ourselves fortunate - unless, indeed, we are overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of all this information.

Whether we make the best use of what is available is another matter. Personally I have little doubt that the money and resources devoted to the collection and analysis of census and Farm Management Survey data can be justified in terms of the contribution they make to providing a background for policy-making and an ever-renewed source of material for teaching and research. Yet I have often thought that all this material is still under-exploited by our profession, and that the bound volumes of statistics on our library shelves and the computer tapes which are so soon stored away could be made to yield a great deal more than we have so far quarried from them.

Sue structure The changing farm size-structure of British agriculture has been analysed in several studies, showing that there has been a continuing reduction in the number

198 D. K. BRITTON

60

Per cent

50

of small farms* and an increase in the number of farms of above, say, 120 hectares. The rate of decline in the number of small farms has been in inverse proportion to their size, and this is characteristic of the structural change which is taking place in agriculture in most countries. Statistics are also frequently published showing the average size of agricultural holdings, indicating an upward trend. The number of separately recorded holdings is falling faster than the area of agricultural land, indicating a continuing process of farm enlargement.

Although there is other evidence, apart from the June Returns, which confirms that this trend exists, it is very difficult to distinguish the real changes from the ‘statistical’ changes which take place when the M.A.F.F. discovers that holdings which should have been returned together are being returned separately. Cor- rections arising from such situations will generally have the effect of making the rate of enlargement of farms appear to be more rapid than it really is. Moreover, if in a certain limited period a concentrated effort was made to make such cor- rections, the statistics published thereafter could suggest an apparent slowing down in the rate of enlargement.

With this reservation about the interpretation of the figures, it nevertheless does seem that the rate of structural change in the size of farms has been slowing down. Figure 1 shows the proportion of the crops and grass area of England and Wales

r

7 /‘ ,’ /

* Harrison (1975) has shown that there are important discrepancies between the statistics of agricultural holdings, as recorded for census purposes, and the ‘real’ numbers of farms which would be obtained if all holdings which are farmed together for purposes of day-to- day management were combined as ‘farms’ in the statistics. References to ‘farms’ in the present paper should therefore be interpreted in the light of his research.

EXPLORATIONS IN ANALYSIS OF CHANGES IN STRUCTURE OF AGRICULTURE 199

Enterprise structure An indication of the extent to which specialisation has taken place on farms, and of the change which may still be proceeding in that direction, may be obtained by analysis of the number of separate enterprises (or activities) recorded per farm at different dates and in different groups of farms.

Using the data published in successive editions of Farm Classification in England and Wales, it is possible to calculate for each size-of-business group, and for each type-of-farming group, the average number of enterprises recorded as being present on the farm at the time of the June Census. For this purpose nine enterprises were selected, as shown in the footnote to Table 1. The table shows the average score out of a possible maximum of 9.*

Table 1 Changes in number of enterprises' per farm irl England and Wales, 1968 to 1974 by size of farm business

1968 1974 DECoLINE x

275- 599 6OO-1,199

1.200-1.799 I ;800-2;399 2,4004,199 4,200 and over Total

2.88 2.49 13.5 3.34 2.93 12.3 3.55 3.16 1 1 -0 3 5.5 3.26 8 -2 3.60 3 .40 5.6 3.52 3.40 3.4 3.18 2.85 10.4

The numbers represent the average of the following nine enterprises: wheat, barley, maincrop potatoes, sugar beet, dairy cows, beef cows, breeding sheep, breeding pigs and hens (for producing eggs for eating).

Source : Farm Classification in England and Wales, annually.

This average score for all farms of over 275 smd. fell from 3.1 8 to 2-85 between 1968 and 1974, a decline of over 10 per cent in six years. There are signs that the rate of change is slowing down, as the figures for successive years were as follows:

AVERAGE NO. DIFFERENCE FROM OF ENTERPRISES PREVIOUS YEAR

1968 3.18 - 1969 3 *07 0.11 1970 3.02 0.05 1971 3.02 0.00 1972 2.95 0.07 i973 1974

_ . ~

2.89 2.85

0-06 0.04

Several other interesting features emerge from this analysis. First, the smaller the farm business, the more rapid the rate of reduction in the number of enterprises. This is rather surprising; it might have been supposed that the larger farm- businesses, having more enterprises, might have had the greater scope for pruning away the less profitable or less congenial enterprises but in fact the opposite seems to have been the case.

Secondly, there is no doubt that the trend towards fewer enterprises on the farm has largely consisted of the elimination of poultry and pig enterprises, leaving these more and more to the specialists. Table 2 shows that the proportion of farms keeping hens (for producing eggs for eating) fell from 50.3 per cent in 1968 to

* The assistance of Mr. A. C. Jeffery, of Wye College, in the preparation of this table is gratefully acknowledged.

200 D. K. BRITTON

Table 2 Percentage of farms keeping breeding pigs and hens in England arid Wales, 1968 and 1974 by size of farm business

PERCENTAGE OF ALL FARMS KEEPMG

SIZE OF FAARM

(SMD.1

BREEDING PIGS HENS

1968 1974 1968 1974

275- 599

1.200-1.799 600-1,199

1 ;800-2;399 2,40&4,199 4,200 and over Total

25.2 16.7 53.9 36.9 26-0 19.5 52.2 36.6 23.8 19.4 43 *9 30.9 22.8 19.9 37.5 25.8 22.3 19.6 34.5 22.4 22.1 22.0 29.3 20.5 25-1 18-5 50.3 34.1

Source: As Table 1

34.1 per cent in 1974. The fall in the proportion keeping breeding pigs was less spectacular, being from 25.1 per cent to 18.5 per cent.

A third striking feature of this table is that whereas in 1968 the smaller farm- business was rather more likely to have breeding pigs than the larger, by 1974 this position had been reversed. Pig breeding is no longer a characteristically small- business enterprise. With hens, on the other hand, the decline in the numbers having this enterprise occurred in all size-groups, and hens are still much more likely to be found in a small farm business than in a large one, though the flock sizes are very different.

The reduction in number of enterprises per farm has occurred in all the types of farm shown in Table 3. Poultry farming has evidently become even more specialised, and farmers who are mainly rearing and fattening beef cattle and/or sheep have also been eliminating other enterprises fairly rapidly. It should be noted that if the average decline for the total of a11 types of farm (10.4 per cent) appears high in relation to the rates of decline recorded for the individual types, this is because the weighting has changed, away from the Mixed and Cropping farms (which have higher-than-average numbers of enterprises) and towards Cattle and Pigs and Poultry farms (which have lower-than-average numbers).

Each year the Annual Review White Paper publishes a table to show the numbers of holdings growing various crops or keeping various kinds of livestock,

Table 3 Changes in number of enterprises* per farm in England and Wales, 1968 to 1974 by type of farm

TYPE OF FARM 1968 1974 DECoLINE A

Specialist Dairy Mainly Dairy Livestock rearing and fattening:

Cattle Sheep Cattle and Sheep

Predominantly Poultry Pigs and Poultry Cropping, mostly Cereals General Cropping Mixed Total

2.44 3.74

2.89 2.94 3.78 I .26 2.48 3.59 4.25 4.70 3.18

2.25 7.8 3.60 3.6

2.67 I .5 2.68 8.9 3 -40 10.0 1 . 1 1 12.5 2.41 2.7 3.29 8.5 490 5.9 4.43 5.7 2.85 10.4

see footnote to Table 1. Source: As Table 1 .

EXPLORATIONS IN ANALYSIS OF CHANGES IN STRUCTURE OF AGRICULTURE 20 1

and the change in the average size of these enterprises between two dates (e.g. 1971 and 1976). It also shows what proportion of the total (national) acreage of the crop, or of the total number of the livestock in question, is in the hands of the larger growers or keepers (above a specified size of the enterprise). These figures certainly convey the message that the various enterprises are increasing in size, and that the larger units are accounting for a larger proportion of the whole. However, to compare only two years is to invite the assumption of a linear trend. If three (or more) dates are compared a more revealing indication is given of the nature of the trend which is in operation.

Cereals provide an interesting example. By studying the year-to-year changes it can be seen that up to 1973 there was an annual increase in the average size of the cereal enterprise per farm, but that thereafter this rise (which had been continuing for some twenty years or more) appears to have come to an abrupt halt (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Cereals enterprises in England and Wales, 1960 to 1975

CEREALS acres per grower I 100

Source :

I

1960 1965 1970 1975 1980

CEREALS

80 I per Cqn t

Proportion on farms growing 100 acres or more

I

1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 Agricultural Statistics, England and Wales.

202 D. K. BRITON

DAIRY COWS per herd

May it be that the technological factors, such as the mechanisation of harvesting and the enlargement of fields, which were pushing farmers towards ever larger units of production, have now spent their force? Or could it be that the situation of the land market in the predominantly cereal-growing areas has discouraged farmers from buying up neighbouring fields or farms ?

This cessation of the rising trend in enterprise-size is not in evidence for dairy cows, sheep, pigs or poultry (Figure 3). More recently, however, there have been signs that the rates of expansion of herds or flocks have been slowing down. This may suggest that before long a limit is going to be reached. On the other hand, it may be more a reflection of the uncertainty which has prevailed in many parts of the agricultural sector in recent years, with the consequent slow growth or contraction of production.

BREEDING PIGS per herd

I

1960 1965 1970 1975 1960 1965 1970 1975

I I

,601

I I I


Types of farming and specialisation of enterprises The trend towards more specialised farming may be illustrated by reference to the numbers of farms classified in each of the M.A.F.F. type-groups in successive years. Table 4 shows that the proportion of Mixed farms has been falling. Specialist Dairy farms are still slowly increasing, partly at the expense of the Mainly Dairying

Table 4 Percentage distribution of farms by type of farm, England and Wales, 1968,1971 and 1974

TYPE OF FARM 1968 1971 1974

Specialist Dairy Mainly Dairying Livestock, mostly Cattle Livestock, mostly Sheep Livestock. Cattle and Sheep Predominantly Poultry Pigs and Poultry Cropping, mosfly Cereals General Cropping Vegetables Fruit General Horticulture Mixed

21 *6 17.3 3 a7 2.8 9.5 2.4 4.1 7.3

11.6 1 *I 1.3 8 *O 9 *3

23.8 144 4.6 2.6 9.3 2.5 4.9 7.3

10.9 1.3 1.4 7.4 9.2

23.9 12.8 7.6 2.4

11.1 2.1 5 *7 6.5

10.1

Source: Farm Classification in EngIand and Wales, annually.

farms which do not devote so large a part of their efforts to milk production. Specialisation on beef cattle rearing and fattening has clearly been increasing, and the proportion of Pigs and Poultry specialists has also risen. On the other hand, there are relatively fewer Cropping specialists. None of these changes is spectacular, and on the whole it could be said that the type-of-farming structure has been fairly stable, but with Mixed farming continuing to give way to more specialised types. It should be noted that none of the changes recorded in Table 4 can be attributed to changes in definitions of types or in standard man-day coefficients, which provide the basis of classification.

Arising out of consideration of the type-of-farm data, the question may be asked: how strong is the tendency for a greater proportion of each farm enterprise (dairying, pig breeding, etc.) to be concentrated in the hands of those who specialise in that enterprise? Table 5 presents information on this point. The most striking change is in breeding pigs. In 1968 only 28.4 per cent of all breeding pigs were on holdings classified as Pigs and Poultry farms, but by 1974 this proportion had almost doubled, to 54.7 per cent. Hens also showed the same trend quite strongly, but it was less marked in the case of dairy cows, breeding sheep and beef cows; and it is interesting to see that in the case of cereals and maincrop potatoes the tendency has been in the other direction, so that these crops have now to some extent moved out of specialist production towards the other types of farm.

Income structure The statistics have been analysed to throw light on two questions which arise under this heading. First, is the variation in net farm income between farms increasing or diminishing? In other words, is the national net farm income being more equally or less equally distributed as time goes on? Secondly, what has been happening to the respective shares of farmers, workers and landowners in the ‘social income’ of agriculture which is available to recompense these three groups of participants in production within the agricultural sector ?

204 D. K. BRITON

Table 5 Changes in the concentration of enterprises on specialised farms in England and Wales

1970 1974

Cereals acreage on Cropping farms (Types 8 and 9) as percent of total cereals acreage 54.4 51.4

1968 1974

Dairy cows on Dairy f a r m (Types 1 and 2) as percent of total

Beef cows on Cattle rearing and fattening farms (Types 3 and 5)

Breeding sheep on Sheep rearing and fattening farms (Types

Breeding pigs on Pigs and Poultry farms (Type 7) as percent of

Hens on Predommantly Poultry farms (Type 6) as percent of all

Maincrop potatoes acreage on General Cropping farms (Type 9)

dairy cows 76.5 84.2

as percent to total beef cows 55.1 59.9

all breeding pigs 28.4 54.7

hens (for producing eggs for eating) 43.9 64 .O

4 and 5) as percent of total breeding sheep 54.6 59.8

as percent of total maincrop uotatoes acreage 63.2 58.8

Source: Farm Classification in England and Wales.

The annual issues of Farm Incomes in England and Wales contain tables showing the percentage distribution of farms according to the size of the net farm income in the year in question. Tables of this kind date back to 1940, but appear to be not strictly comparable before and after 1965, when a system of weighting the sample on the basis of full census data was introduced. There is also some discontinuity arising from the fact that from 1968 onwards, farms of 4,200 smd. and above were excluded from these tables. (There are now about 4,000 such farms in England and Wales, accounting for some 20 per cent of total smds.)

From these tables it is possible to calculate the median income and the upper and lower auartile incomes in each year. The results of the calculation are shown

as a measure of dispersion, it appears that in most Qs - Qi Median

in Table 6. Using

years, in the context of rising levels of income in current money terms, the distribution remained similar, the measure of dispersion varying between 1 -04 and 1.26. However, in 1966 the spread was noticeably wider than usual, and in 1974-75 the exceptional figure of 1 a54 was reached. In that year the median net farm income

Table 6 Changes in the Dispersion of Net Farm Incomes in England and Wales, 1965 to 1975176

Qs- Q i NET FARM INCOME, .f, PER FARM

FIRST MEDIAN THmD MEDIAN QUARTJLE QUARTILE

1965 79 1 1,397 2,369 1 .13 1966 447 1,154 2,029 1.37 1967 1,131 1,542 2,754 1.05 1968 74 1 1.500 2.508 1.18 1969170 igioj7i 1971172 1972173 1973174

1,065 2;061 11616 1,250 2.443 4,170 2,388 4,125 6,690 3,375 5,772 9,370 2.691 4.670 8.048

1.24 1 *24 1.04 1.04 1.15

1974175 1,926 31556 7;395 1 5 4 1975176 p. 3,625 6.844 12,267 1.26

Source : Farm Incomes in England and Wales, annually.


fell by 24 per cent but the income at the upper quartile fell by only 8 per cent. In other words, the setback was felt more at the lower than at the upper end of the income scale, and this widened the differences between farms. However, from the figures it cannot be said that there is any perceptible trend towards greater or less inequality of incomes among farms. This takes no account of non-farming sources of incomes, or of multiple holdings belonging to the same individual, partnership or company.

From the published tables of distribution of net farm incomes in England and Wales it can be calculated that in 1975/76 about 66 per cent of the total net farm income earned on all farms of between 275 and 4,200 smd. was received by farmers with a net farm income of €10,000 or more. The corresponding figures in the three preceding years were: 1972/73, 50 per cent; 1973/74, 49 per cent; and 1974/75, 52 per cent. These figures would be higher if the so-called ‘very large’ farms of 4,200 smd. and above were included.

It is interesting to speculate whether the disparity of incomes between farms is closely related to differences in their ‘efficiency’ or ‘performance’ as conventionally measured. In Farm Incomes in Englandand Wales the M.A.F.F. regularly presents comparisons between ‘High Performance’ and ‘Low Performance’ farms,* showing the levels and patterns of output and input in each group, by size and type of farm. It may therefore be asked, is the gap between High Performance and Low Performance farms widening or narrowing? Are the leaders still running far ahead of the field, or are the laggards catching up?

Analysis of the evidence on this point (Table 7) is rather inconclusive but sug- gests that the efficiency gap may be widening, at Ieast on Dairying and on Live- stock farms. On Cropping farms the picture is more confused; the apparent steady improvement in the efficiency of High Performance farms may have some- thing to do with the very high prices of potatoes in 1974/75 and 1975/76. For none of the three types of farms can it be said that the gap in value of output per hectare is widening as between the High Performance and Low Performance farms. In some years, and especially in 1973/74 on Livestock farms, it was low expenditure on inputs rather than high receipts which put farmers in the High Performance category.

The published tables giving the national net farm income calculation (e.g. Table 21 of the Annual Review of Agriculture 1977) make it possible to compare the respective amounts received by farmers as net farm income, by workers as wages and by landowners as gross rents. The total of these three amounts has sometimes been described as the ‘social income of agriculture’?. Figure 4 sum- marises these figures for the period from 1946/47 to 1975/76, using three-year moving averages.

It will be seen that while the workers’ share, after being constant at about 41 per cent throughout the 1950’s, began to fall in 1960/61 and has continued to fall ever since that year, the landowners’ share rose steadily from 1949-50 for a period of twenty years, but since 1969/70 it has been undergoing a marked decline. The farmers’ share has grown very significantly in the past five years, and this is a feature which calls for further analysis. Why, in this period of rapid inflation and fluctuating fortunes in the agricultural sector, should the shares of rent and, to a lesser extent, wages have been so sharply reduced? Are rents not keeping pace with the changes in profitability of the land ? It is not sufficient to say that actual rents always lag behind the true economic rent; what has to be explained is that

* Using the average of the two most recent years, farms in the Farm Management Survey are ranked according to the value of their output per E l 0 0 of total input (including the imputed value of the labour of the farmer and his wife). The top 25 per cent are classed as High Per- formance and the bottom 25 per Cent as Low performance.

t See, for exampIe, the paper by Wynne (1954).

206 D. K. BRITTON

Table 7 Changes in the Efficiency Gap, 1%9/70 to 1975176 Farm Management Survey, England and Wales

GROSS OUTPUT1 PER L100 INPUT

HIGH PKRFORMANCE LOW PERFORMANCE FARMS FARMS

RATIO, HIGHlLOW

Dairy farms 1969170 1970171 1971/72 1972173 1973174 1974175 1975176 p.

Livestock farms 1969170 1970171 1971172 1972173 i973j74 1974175 1975176 p.

Cropping farms 1969170 197017 1 1971'172 i972175 1973174 1974175 1975176 p.

131 135 __.

158 168 135 128 150

141 143 174 206 189 136 166

146 146 i 50 162 174 177 183

98 99

112 117 98 89 91

95 99

107 120 99 ..

86 106

102 100 108 112 151 108 112

1.34 I .66 1.41 1.44 1.38 1.44 1.65

1.48 1.44 1.63 1.72 1.91

1.57 1 .5a

1.43 1.46 1.39 1.45 1.15 1 6 4 1.63

For 1974175 and 1975176, Enterprise Output per El00 inputs. Source: Farm Incomes in England and Wales, annually.

this lag appears to be much more pronounced than it was five years ago. Again, on the wages side, how far is the recent declining share due to the Social Contract and wage restraint, and how far to the downward trend in the numbers of workers employed - a trend which itself seems to have been slowing down in recent years? What would be the basis of an equitable distribution of income between the three partners, and how far does the present distribution accord with i t? A fuller analysis would have to take account of the after-tax situation; the interpretation of the pre-tax data given here is inadequate in the broader social welfare context.

A related question is that of farm workers' earnings in relation to earnings of workers in other sectors of the economy. This relationship has shown a marked improvement in favour of agricultural workers in recent years (Figure 5). How- ever, as has been shown above, this closing of the earnings gap has not been such as to give farm workers a larger share of the total income generated in the agricultural sector. The income gap between farm workers and their employers has tended to widen in the last few years.

The long-term increase in the productivity of labour in the agricultural sector has often been quoted, but less attention has been given to the changing ratio between the number of persons engaged in agriculture and the stock of physical capital with which they are provided. According to figures given in the report on Agricultural Labour in England and Wales, 1975, the total capital stock (vehicles, plant, machinery, buildings and works, together with stocks and work-in-progress, but excluding the land itself and cash in hand) in U.K. agriculture and horticulture increased in real terms between 1965 and 1974 at an average annual rate of 2.8

207

I I A

Figure 4 Shares of farmers, farm workers and landowners in the income generated in agriculture, United Kingdom, 1946/47 to 1975/76 (3-year moving averages)

6C

Percentage Share

5c

40

30

20

10

NET FARM INCOME 1 WAGES

80

Per cent

70

60

Source: Agricultural Labour in England and Wales: Earnings, Hours and Numbers of Persons. M. A . F. F., 1975.

208 D. K. BRITTON

per cent (compound). In the same period the total number of persons engaged in agriculture and horticulture (farmers and workers) declined at a rate of 3-1 per cent, so that the capital stock per person was increasing during that period at an annual rate of 6.1 per cent. A close monitoring of this situation from year to year seems to be called for, as it must be of vital importance for the future development of the whole agricultural economy.

Conclusion These are some of the trends and developments which have attracted my attention as I have looked through the published statistics which have come on to my desk year in, year out, for the past thirty years. The long columns of figures and the meticulous footnotes in small print which are so characteristic of these publica- tions may be a powerful deterrent to many readers, and they may well share-the mood expressed by Clough, and quoted by Churchill during the darkest moments of the war, that:

‘. . . the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain.’

To them, and more particularly to a11 those who have had the task of preparing the figures, I commend the first lines of the same poem:

‘Say not the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain.’

References Harrison, A. (1954). Farmers and Farm Businesses in England, Department of Agricultural

Wynne, A. J. (1954). Large and small scale farming in England and Wales, J. ugric. Econ. 11, Economics, Misc. Study No. 62, University of Reading.

20-41.

Resume CERTAINS DOMAINES D’APPROFONDISSEMENT DE L‘ANALY SE DES CHANGEMENTS A LONG TERME DANS LA STRUCTURE DE L‘AGRICULTURE

Cet article indique les domaines dans lesquels I’analyse des risultats du recensement des exploitations agricoles et des donntes provenant des enqu2tes pourrait 2tre pousste plus h fond. Parmi les questions postes se dkgagent les suivantes: La structure dimensionnelle des exploitations de I’Angleterre et du Pays de Galles approche-t-elle maintenant la stabilitk ? La specialisation en entreprises de nombre rtduit mais de taille plus grande se poursuit-elle dans l’agriculture ? Quels sont les types d‘exploitation qui prennent de plus en plus ou de moins en moins d’importance ? Existe-t-il une tendance discernable en direction d’un accroissement des inkgalites de revenus ou d’eficacitt entre exploitations agricoles? Quelle est la tendance dans la part respective de revenu des exploitants, de la main-d’oeuvre et des propriktaires fonciers ?


Zusammenfassung EINIGE UNTERSUCHUNGEN ZUR ANALYSE LANGFRISTIGER VERANDERUNGEN IN DER STRUKTUR DER LANDWIRTSCHAFT

Der ArtikeI zeigt Moglichkeiten auf, wie Daten von Farmzahlungen und -schatzungen griindlicher geniitzt werden konnten. Es folgen einige der aufgeworfenen Fragen: Nahert sich die Grossenstruktur der Farmen in England und Wales jetzt der Stabilitat ? Spezialisieren sich die Farmen weiterhin auf weniger oder grossere Unternehmen ? Welche Arten der landwirtschaftlichen Tatigkeit nehmen an Bedeu- tung zu oder ab? Gibt es einen feststellbaren Trend auf eine grosser werdende Ungleichheit der Einkommen oder der Arbeitsleistung zwischen Farmen hin ? Wohir, geht der Trend des jeweiligen Einkom- menanteils von Farmern, Arbeitern und Landeigentiimern ?

some explorations in the analysis of long-term changes in the structure of agriculture :...

Documents